He Loved Her the Best He Could
by Billie
Summary: Draco and Hermione, older. Harry'll be in soon, as well as others. Not quite sure where this is goin, if anywhere. Please R/R!
1. Exhaustion

I own nothing but Daisy. That's it.  
This is for Ginger. She's the best friend I could ever ask for.  
~Billie~  
  
  
She wore boots and a fragile smile every day of her twenty-first year. She treaded lightly on the hearts of broken men and wiped the shit from her shoes on the battered women she cared so little about.  
  
She knew always that he was there, somewhere, watching her. She would often sneak glances over her back to see if she could catch a glimpse of his dark brown hair, the flash of his glasses in the sunlight. But she never did. He was long gone, and she had a feeling deep down inside that she would never see him again.  
  
Brushing her golden brown hair from her face, she walked down Knockturn Alley, the one place she still felt at home. It didn't bother her that the people there were dark and lonely. In the pit of her stomach, she knew that she was, too. It didn't bother her that women watched jealously as her perfectly shaped hips swung back and forth with each step. It bothered her even less that men of all shapes and sizes stared at her hungrily as she glided down the dark, filthy alley. She was used to it by now.  
  
Reaching the rickity wooden stairway that lead to her cramped apartment, she slowly ascended, taking each step as if it were her first, and if it could possibly be her last. Men stood beneath the rotting stairs that would have collapsed by now if they weren't held up by magic, staring up her skirt, mouths open, gawking. Glancing down, she tiredly said, Good afternoon, gentlemen, the smile on her face never faultering. They didn't reply. They never did. She continued on.  
  
When she reached the apartment, she turned the knob and walked in, putting her back to the room and closing the door with what looked like much more effort than was needed. Immediatly, the smile fell, her posture collapsed, and her beautiful brown eyes closed as if she were holding back tears. The facade was over. At least, for the day.  
  
He looked up from the desk where he had been sitting all day, staring at the dark wood with which it was made, and an uneasy smile crossed his face. Welcome home, darling, he softly drawled.  
  
She turned and, reflecting his smile falsely, she dropped her satchel and glided towards him. Hello, love, she replied, letting her cloak fall to the ground. She was tragically beautiful. Moreso every time he saw her. He stood and walked to meet her in the center of the room, wrapping his pale, thin arms around her and resting his face in her hair. Her soft, worn sweater felt good against his hands. He let the smile fade and closed his steel grey eyes.  
  
She loved him, to an extent. She had grown to love the pain he had caused her when they were younger, she had loved the way that when no one else was there, he had been, although it had always been with his insults and hatred. Recently, she had grown to love the way he had acknowledged his feelings for her, holding her for hours and waking her up at night with soft kisses and gentle caresses.  
  
He breathed her in deeply, smelling the musty shop in which she passed her days working, the smell of old books clinging to her body the way her past clung to her soul.  
  
Pulling away from him, she turned to face the fireplace, where a small, blue fire burned. The heat wasn't working again. Let's have dinner, she said abruptly, interrupting the one moment of peace he had experienced in the day.  
  
He immediatly released her, so quickly it was almost as if she had burned him, and walked back to the desk, lighting the cigarette behind his ear and staring into the fire he had started not too long ago. He loved her, or at least believed he did. He gave her what his meager job as a free-lance writer would allow, asking nothing in return except that she would at least pretend to love her. Fake love was better than none. She had agreed years ago, and so, out of respect for her and love for what she was willing to do for him, he pretended not to hear when she called out a different name late at night, even though it was always the one he had prayed he would never hear.  
  
Sometimes, he wished she would die, but more often, he wished he would, so that she could go on living a better life. he said softly, You know I love you, right?  
  
Yes, Draco, she replied, her voice sounding as if she was much farther away than the kitchen. I know.  
  
He nodded, more to himself than to her, and continued to watch as the flames danced in in fireplace.


	2. Another sleepless night

Once again, I own nothing but Daisy. And by the way, this entire thing is dedicated to the most wonderful person I could ever hope to be friends with, Ginger. Enjoy!  
~Billie  
  
  
  
  
They dined in silence that night, her finishing her meal before he could even bring himself to take the first bite. This seemed to be the way their meals progressed for the past few months. When she was done, she rose wordlessly, placed her dishes beside the sink, and went to the living room to read by the warm light of the fire. He hated that fire, the way it lit the entire house in an eerie blue glow, making everything seem surreal. Of course, he had begun to wonder if anything in the place existed in the first place.  
  
He remained at the table for a few more minutes, forcing himself to swallow a few small spoonfuls of stew before his stomach objected to the meal, not because of the food itself, which was rather pleasant - the meat tender and the vegetables cooked to perfection- but because his mind and body seemed to reject the idea of warmth and happiness in its entirety. he was always very cold. As he rose to clean off the table and wash the dishes, he quietly hummed a rather pleasant tune he had once heard until he heard an exasperated sigh coming from the other room. He ceased immediatly and washed the dishes, the scalding water not even enough to melt the ice that ran through his veins. When he was finished, he wandered into the living room and collapsed into the hard, uncomfortable shair at his desk. He watched her reading, the firelight casting strange, flickering blue shadows on her face and reflecting a strange, pale green color on her hair.  
  
Attempting to establish a form of contact with her, he lit up another cigarette and cleared his throat softly.  
  
She glanced up at him with complete disinterest for only a short moment before returning to the pages of her book.  
  
How was it? he asked as timidly as a child interrupting the strictest of teacher's lecture.  
  
She glanced up at him, mild surprise and mild disgust in her eyes. What do you mean?  
  
You know, how was your day, he responded, his voice a little more confident now that she had at least acknowledged his presence.  
  
It was fine, she replied shortly, returning to her book immediatly as a signal that her side of the conversation was complete.  
  
He sighed deeply and took a deep breath. I didn't get anything done today, he said softly, certain she was not listening and speaking to simply remove the silence that hung so heavily between them, as he often did. I thought for a while that I had something good... something that I had planned on making work for me. I even milled it around in my head for a while and couldn't see anything wrong with it. But then, it all sort of faded away. Into nothingness. He felt as if he were almost choking, his lungs seeming to refuse to allow any more air to enter or escape. He couldn't believe he had said that outloud.  
  
she said softly. That's not the only thing that has faded away. Then with a sudden fierceness he was not expecting, she stood, tossed the book into her battered armchair and snapped, I'm going to bed. Alone. She stared at him hard and he closed his eyes, not wanting to see the emotions he was so certain were battling for control on her face. Recently, hatred had seemed to triumph over love more and more often.  
  
Goodnight, beautiful, he murmured. She didn't respond. He hadn't expected her to.  
  
Staring into the flames, he reflected on what she meant when she had said that things had faded away. He knew exactly what she meant, it wasn't terribly difficult to figure out. he missed the days when he had hated her and loved the creulty with which he treated her. He missed the days when he had believed that love existed. He would still never understand why she had agreed to follow him wherever he went, and he would never understand what had made him ask her to do so. He supposed it had been love, but where was this so-called love now? He hated his life. He hated her for promising to love him and then not doing so. He hated her for sleeping in his bed, for making him feel alive and for showing him the beauty of the world, but he hated her more than anything for keeping her eyes closed and calling out another name when he made love to her.  
  
She lay in bed that night, staring at the ceiling and caring less each passing moment about the hurt she had just caused him. After all, it was his selfishness that had brought them together in the first place. Why couldn't her selfishness push them apart? She hated her life. She had always imagined that she'd be a beautiful wife, with a handsome husband, a gorgeous house, and perfect children. Instead, she was shacked up with a pathetically terrible writer in a small, cheap apartment. She hated him for ever allowing himself to stop hating her with every fiber of his being. She had loved and respected him in those first years, when he would push her to the limit before jerking her back and dragging her fragile heart through miles of broken glass.  
  
Their love had not been a love of convienience. It had been secretive and exhilarating at first, nothing but quick kisses in the halls and late night meetings in empty classrooms all through their sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When the relationship had at last come out in the open in the middle of their seventh year, both lost everything overnight. Ron and Harry had turned away from her, their trust betrayed to the greatest extent. Draco's father had disowned him and taken him out of his will, Narcissa wept for the loss of her only son. Neither Draco nor Hermione had minded at the time. But the sinful nature of their relationship had slowly dissipated until it was as if the passion had never existed, and both had begun pretending that their lives and choices were still their own, that nothing was out of a lack of initiative to make things better.  
  
Draco had found initiative tonight. He was leaving. He knew not where he was going, or how he would survive, but he planned on walking away and never looking back. It would hurt, he knew. But the pain it caused him would be worth the joy it caused her. He wasn't needed anymore. He wasn't wanted in this home. And he definetly wouldn't be missed. He was twenty-two years old and his life had amounted to nothing. He knew this wasn't abnormal; he knew he had years and years to make his mark on the world. But his mark was already begining, and it hadn't started out so well. He wanted to fix that, and he wasn't quite sure how. He knew where he could start, though.  
  
She closed her eyes when she heard the bedroom door open, pretending to be asleep. It seemed that was all she did anymore - pretend. She heard the creek of the closet door and heard him pull out what sounded like a cloak by the soft click of the metal hanger and heard him unzip his satchel, whispering an expanding charm immediatly after he did so. She heard him rustling around a few minutes more before she could hear nothing but her heart beating in her chest, feeling as if her ribcage was about to snap open. A few minutes later, she felt his icy fingers brush the hair from her face and his frozen lips brushed against her cheek. Forgive me, Hermione, he whispered. I just wanted to know what love felt like.  
  
She heard him leaving the room and rolled over, opening her eyes just enough to see his silouette against the bright blue light from her living room. An instant later, he was gone from her view. She heard the front door open and shut. She allowed herself one tear, that raced down the side of her face, slid down the slope of her nose, and held on as long as it could before falling away to be absorbed in the soft plaid flannel pillowcase upon which her head rested. Then she closed her eyes, accepted the fact that she would never see him again, and fell into a gentle, restful sleep with a slight smile on her face.


End file.
